The present invention concerns a process enabling the direct fabrication of at least one part on a structure, in particular an aircraft fuselage, and a device for implementing this process.
A fuselage includes a primary structure, formed, in particular, of transverse frames and of longitudinal stringers, of an external skin supported by the primary structure, and also of a floor fixed to the primary structure. At the time of fabrication of the fuselage at a production site, numerous parts of various types are fixed to the primary structure in order to reinforce it, such as, for example, a linking plate and a backing plate, fixed to one another at the juncture between two coplanar frames and clasping said two frames in order to couple them to one another.
At present, the parts to be fixed are fabricated by various entities outside the production site and are then conveyed to the latter where they are put away in the warehouse of the production site. Prior to the fixing of the part to the fuselage by screwing or riveting, the operators have to go and look for the parts in the warehouse in order to transport them into the fuselage to a position where they have to be fixed, they have to set these parts by means of liquid or pasty setting, necessitating a significant drying-time, in order to take into account the defects of contact between the primary structure and the part, said defects being due to the clearances (less than one millimeter) inherent in the jointing of elements of large dimensions. These measures slow down the rate of production of the fuselages.
One solution to this problem would be to fabricate the parts directly on the fuselage at the place where they have to be fixed. From document EP 2 537 642 a device is known for printing of parts in 3D, but this device is arranged in a closed enclosure specifically dedicated to the printing, and only enables a part to be fabricated in accordance with a predetermined template, the part fabricated in this way (necessitating a machining phase in order to extract it from its support plate) still having to be conveyed to the production site and then set.